


The Art of Intimidation (and Facades)

by Cartwheellou



Series: After Summer's End [4]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Bullying, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, Max Needs Friends, Max's Parents' A+ Parenting, Please don't call Max's parents, post-camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 11:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16809487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cartwheellou/pseuds/Cartwheellou
Summary: Fighting the school year was the head-underwater type battle, what with uncaring teachers calling uncaring parents, and—and Max didn't care, either. He was just hungry, that was all. And exhausted, because there was this one brat following him around everywhere that wouldn't stop asking questions. Other than that, though; she wasn't so bad.





	The Art of Intimidation (and Facades)

**Author's Note:**

> I referenced Vanessa ever so slightly in Punch My Clock if you're curious, but there aren't any prerequisite stories.

When walking anywhere outside of the classroom, Max always had to walk at the front of the line. It was alphabetical order, so it was perfectly logical, but he thought that even if he wouldn’t have otherwise been put there by his last name, Ms. Wilhelm would have made him walk next to her anyway. No one got more bent out of shape than her when he tried to do anything without an adult breathing down his neck; she hadn’t liked him since he brought in bang snaps on the first day. Therefore, it was her own fault Max took to leaving in more brash fashions.

“Ms. Wilhelm, Max is out of line!” Tammy shouted, rocking up on her toes as if to project her noise above the heads of everyone in front of her.

At the front of the line, there was also a 99% chance some shitty kid would sound an alarm. Max rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Tammy.”

“Max!” Ms. Wilhelm called. “Mind your language, and please get back into line!” The line slowed beside him as he made his way parallel to it—she must have stopped walking.

Max didn’t even cast a glance over his shoulder, soldiering on with his hands buried deep in his pockets. “I’m allowed to go to the bathroom, aren’t I?”

As a response, he heard, “Wait until the rest of the class has made it to the lunch room.”

“Oh my god,” Max groaned. “You do  _ not _ need to come with me. I can handle  _ peeing _ by myself.”

All the kids in line ‘eww’ed and snickered. 

“I would feel a lot better if I went with you,” she insisted.

“And I would feel a lot better in the bathroom.” He reached the end of the train.

“Max!”

“Yup! Meet you there!” He lifted a hand out to wave behind himself.

Other classes were also making their way towards the cafeteria, so he quickly lost himself in the columns of people. She would definitely be searching for him after she dropped the class off; they both knew he wasn’t really going to the bathroom. He’d take the head start, however short.

Max’s classroom, and the fifth grade classes in general, were rather close to the lunchroom, so most classes should reasonably be after him. He scrutinized all of the teachers he passed, watching for Mr. Schmitt. His classroom was farther down the hallway, so it would make the most sense for him to be near the back of the crowd. In the meantime, Max did his best to look like he knew where he was going, trying to ward off the teachers scanning him with considering eyes; they were probably assuming he was lost or some shit. The kids he passed never cared about him, but teachers were always suspicious that any random kid was victim to a memory that reset every twenty seconds—either that or a plague host that spread disorder as easy as breathing. Along his way he spotted Ms. Hiendall, who he ducked away from as soon as conveniently possible—she was his teacher last year, and thus was the most likely to know he wasn’t going anywhere he should be.

Finally nearing the back end of the crowd, Max discovered the beanpole man leading his class of jittery third graders, the line near bursting from their excitement for their prepackaged cafeteria nutrition. In the back, Max could see a ponytail flopping around in the air, just as antsy as everyone else. He ducked behind one of the half-columns jutting out from the wall, waiting for the bouncing hairstyle to draw closer.

“Vanessa,” Max hissed when they were lined up. The girl halted, the kid behind her crashing into her backside and causing a pile up. At the shove she continued her slow stroll, wildly looking around for the source of her name. Her eyes landed on Max, carefully out of sight. He waved her over with a hand.

Gears cranked behind her eyes for a few moments before she stopped again, much to the chargin of the kids behind her, and rocketed her hand up in the air. “Mr. Schmitt I have to go to the bathroom!” The whole line giggled.

From his place behind the pillar, Max couldn’t see any wave of acknowledgement, but he heard a vague “Go ahead” as Vanessa charged back towards him. A couple nosey kids looked back to see where exactly she was running, to which Max put a finger to his lips and hissed them all silent. He managed to wave her off with a few hurried gestures to avoid the teacher’s suspicion.

As the line ventured off, Vanessa made her way back over to him, crowding into his corner thoughtlessly. He pushed her away with a firm hand on her forehead. “You don’t have to be so fucking close, you know.”

“Oh, right.” She looked down at her feet, judging the distance between them and taking another small shuffle backwards—they had gone over how far away normal people stand from each other before—before beaming up at him. “So—what are you doing here?”

Max shimmied away from the wall and back into the open hallway, strolling back in the direction of the cafeteria. Vanessa stuck close on his tail. “I need you to be lookout while I sneak into Ms. Wilhelm’s room.”

“Why? What are you doing in there?” she questioned. She took an overbearing enjoyment asking questions.

“I need to change my parents phone numbers in the school records before she calls them tonight,” he explained. “This isn’t really something I can afford to get caught doing, so you need to stand watch.”

“I’ve never stood watch before,” she relayed regretfully.

Max shrugged. “First time for everything. It’s not that hard.”

“What do I have to do?” she asked, anxiety edging her tone.

“Just stand outside the door and watch for teachers coming. Knock on the door, but  _ only _ if they look like they’re gonna come in the room, and  _ definitely _ knock if it’s Ms. Wilhelm. Try not to look lost, or anything, or else teachers are gonna come ask you what you’re doing all alone. If anyone  _ does _ come ask you what you’re doing, tell them you need help finding Mr. Schmitt. Okay?” He twisted around a bit to connect gazes.

Vanessa took her time nodding, little pedals going as fast as they could in her brain. “Yuh huh.”

He grinned sharply, coming to a stop in front of Ms. Wilhelm’s door. It was still open a crack, even though most teachers made sure the last kid in line always pulled it shut—Max had organized otherwise. Vanessa cocked her head at the error. “If all goes well, my parents won’t hear a word,” he told her. He slipped inside and pulled it closed softly behind him.

All alone in the hallway, Vanessa nodded sharply to herself, squaring up to the hallway with her feet neatly together, fist poised behind her ready to knock at the first sign of trouble. Then, remembering Max’s words, she relaxed her shoulders and rearranged her feet. She was just… waiting. She was waiting for Ms. Wilhelm to come back, or waiting for her friend to come out. A teacher saddled with his class came by, late on their way to lunch, and nobody paid her a glance. Success!

* * *

After many minutes of waiting, Max came out of the room. He shut the door just as gently as he had while entering, hand lingering on the doorknob as he rested his forehead against the seam. Eventually his grip fell away and he slipped from his place at the wall, wordlessly setting off down the hall. Vanessa bounced after him, elated at Max’s successful infiltration and her first time as look out. “Did you change the numbers?!” she asked, skipping right at his side.

He cast his eyes down towards her. “No.”

“Oh.” Vanessa’s cheerful gait slowed. “So… does that mean she’s going to call your parents tonight?”

He nodded once.

“What’re they gonna do?”

He shrugged, but the way his lips were pressed clear of blood, Vanessa took it more to mean ‘I’m not telling you’ rather than ‘I don’t know.’

For once, she didn’t ask any more, resigning herself to watching Max over lunch, tugging the ends of his hair to hunker down against some invisible force.

* * *

Entering the lunchroom the next day, Vanessa rolled up on her toes to peer above Bethany’s head, seeking out Max’s familiar hair. He was seated at his usual place, crammed in the corner of the table that Ms. Wilhelm and Ms. McCartney’s classes had to share. A small bubble of emptiness surrounded him, the other kids giving him as wide of a berth as they could manage at such a full table. His head was tilted back, dumping the crumbs of his chip bag into his mouth. He shook it a few extra times, then dropped it to unwrap and tear into his sandwich. Vanessa’s mouth twisted into a frown.

Max didn’t like people asking him questions. He also didn’t like teachers, other kids, school—most things. Max didn’t like most things. Very specifically, Max had told her once, after she saw him dump almost a tray full of food into the garbage can, “It’s shit—I don’t wanna eat it if I can help it. There’s junk food at home.” So Max didn’t like the cafeteria lunches, either, therefore making his current actions very suspect.

If she could, she would bounce out of line to go interrogate him—he wouldn’t like it, but Vanessa would, so it seemed like a fair trade—but it was against the rules to leave the lunch line. It was against the rules to go sit at tables other than your classes table, too, so she wouldn’t get to speak with him until recess. She only knew that out of watching teachers catch other students at their tables and kicking them out—Vanessa herself had never had a reason to go sit by another class before today. But now the urge was itching in her feet, and while the line crept closer towards the window where the old ladies would hand you your milk carton, Max finished off his sandwich at record speeds and took a hunk out of his apple. Distractedly, Vanessa thanked whoever had just handed her her lunch.

Wheeling back around the room towards Mr. Schmitt’s table, a striking realization encountered Vanessa—that if it were Max in her shoes, there was absolutely no question as to what his next course of action would be. So she continued following Bethany, all the way to the table, and when she got there, she rounded the far end, blending in with the kids currently sitting down. Then she shot off to the other side of the room, as if she were a late arrival.

Vanessa seated herself in the empty space across from Max, quite pleased. Max glanced to her while completing first lap around the center of the apple. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked around the fruit in his mouth.

“I wanted to,” she answered primly, conscious about what any other answer would bring her. She unwrapped her sandwich, which she always ate first, and took a bite. “How’s your lunch?”

“What do you think?” he griped, munching on a new mouthful. He always found reason to complain.

“Tasty,” she replied.

“Well, you’re thinking wrong.” He propped the elbow holding the apple on the edge of the table.

“You’re eating an awful lot of it, then, for it not being so tasty,” she said meaningfully—but hopefully not too meaningfully.

“That’s cause I’m hungry.”

“Why are you so hungry?” Vanessa questioned, a well of satisfaction springing up inside of her. There was something so nice about asking the right question at the right time.

He shrugged and took another bite, making Vanessa pout at him. It wasn’t fair that she so masterfully weaseled a question out only for him to quite literally shrug it off. “Usually, you barely even ea—”

“Hey, Max!” some kid halfway down the table shouted. “Who’s the kindergartener?” As the initial shout drew the collective attention of everyone midtable down, guffaws went around at the comment. Vanessa straightened up in her seat.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Max muttered.

Huffed up, Vanessa snapped back, “I’m in third grade!” There was a too short beat at the end of Vanessa talking, while the last word was still coming out, where she saw Max’s face and immediately knew she had said the wrong thing.

Everyone else seemed to love it, however, breaking into laughter. It was interesting, though, how Vanessa could tell it wasn’t the nice laughter, even though it sounded the same.

Max smacked his forehead down in his palm. “No, don’t say that.” Vanessa’s insides all turned into guilty mush.

“Oh,  _ pardon me, miss _ ,” the other kid mocked, wiggling around in his seat and waving his hands by his face. “I didn’t mean to offend, it’s just that you’re so young for your age!”

Vanessa opened her mouth, but she hadn’t a clue what should come out of it.

“Go back to your own table!” he spat, and threw his head back, sound spilling out of the opening like an old record player.

Amidst the raucous noise—“Don’t worry about him, Vanessa.” Her eyes moved up to Max’s, but he was gazing off down at the ringleader. “Silas is just insecure over the fact that he doesn’t have any friends outside of the group of people forced to spend almost every day with him.”

A swath was cut through the noise as the crowd sobered, but the few who enjoyed burns from any side tittered. Silas reddened and replied, “That’s rich coming from you, Max, considering you don’t have  _ any  _ friends—unless you’re counting this  _ eight year old _ .”

“That you know of. Sorry I don’t feel the need for constant validation like you.” Max shrugged.

When Max shrugged, all of the words fell off of him. Vanessa’s questions fell off just the same way, but so had Jet’s threats when Vanessa met Max for the first time, and it was just so  _ cool _ . Max was so cool. He didn’t let anyone talk down to him.

Silas sneered. “Say all you want, Max, but everyone knows you don’t have any friends because no one  _ likes _ you.”

“Hey!” Vanessa shouted before really meaning to. She was only halfway through her sentence and even  _ she _ knew she should have kept her mouth shut. “I like—”

“Vanessa!” Max hissed, but the damage was done.

The table was thrown into peals of vicious laughter. This laughter didn’t even sound nice. It was hitched and screechy, like everyone was dying. “Yeah, don’t worry Max!” Silas shrieked. “The eight year old thinks you’re pretty great!”

“Don’t say that, Vanessa, don’t say that.” Max tugged on the ends of his hair, looking out over the rest of the table with critical eyes.

Vanessa shrunk down, staring at her tray. She had only come over to see if Max was okay—he had looked so upset, and he had been acting so strange, and yesterday hadn’t been so good—and now the whole table was turned on them like they science specimens, or tiny ants under a big hot magnifying glass.

Calm as ever, Max cut through the noise, “At least  _ my _ sibling likes me.” And perhaps no one heard it, because not much notice was taken. “Didn’t yours fuck off when he was 16, Silas?”

That sentence was heard, because all noise parted clear away, save a few trickling drops, and all sort of expression dropped off of Silas’s face. The air grew thick and choked, like Silas’s voice when he finally spoke, “What do  _ you _ know about my brother?” No one said anything, and no one made hardly a movement as they flickered their eyes over to Max in wait of a response.

Max turned his nose up. “And what do you know about me? Mind your own damn business about who I sit with.”

One by one kids began to remove themselves from the situation, turning back to their lunches or each other. After a few extra weighty seconds of eye contact, Silas turned back to his friends. Max again brought his apple to his lips.

“Sorry,” Vanessa mumbled her sandwich. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“Well, don’t,” Max replied, “because I’m fine.”

“You are not,” she argued around her food.

“What?”

“You are not,” she repeated, a titch louder. The least she could do was pick some words she could stand behind. “You’re upset and hungry.”

“Wha—if you’re already convinced about an answer, then don’t even ask the question! And of course I’m upset and hungry, I didn’t eat anything last night and I couldn’t change the phone number in the computer!” Max frowned after saying so, but Vanessa couldn’t tell if that was a reaction to what he said or a reaction to the fact that he gave anything away at all.

“Did she call your parents?”

He bared his teeth. “Of fucking course!”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“No shit!”

“What did they do?”

“They—!” He took a breath. “It doesn’t fucking matter.” He slouched back down. “Is that all you came over here to bother me about?”

Vanessa nodded and took another bite of her sandwich. Max sighed lightly through his nose, eyes glancing over her. This was usually the time he told her follow the rules and leave him alone, even though it was really just because he wanted to sit by himself. “Just eat your food.”

Vanessa nodded again and crammed down the last of her sandwich, resigning herself to the silence Max so often insisted upon.

* * *

“Tabbry jumped up on my dresser last night while I was doing my homework and tipped my piggy bank off the edge. I was so mad at her that I shouted at her and grabbed her so I could throw her out the door. She jumped out of my arms before I could and left big scratches from her back feet.” Vanessa shoves her forearms out to an indifferent Max, who didn’t look over at the irritated red lines marring her skin. “Then my mom came in before I could clean the piggy bank up, and she got mad at  _ me _ before I could tell her that it was Tabbry’s fault. She said that I didn’t deserve to get another piggy bank, so that’s why I keep my money in a cup now.” Vanessa swung her legs, gazing up at Max to search for any sort of reaction. As per usual, he was staring out over the playground of running children with a thoughtless frown. “Do you have a piggy bank?”

“No,” he responded, tone unimaginably dry.

“Then where do you keep your money?”

“I don’t have any money.”

Vanessa crossed her arms. “Your parents don’t give you any money for doing chores around the house?”

Max snorted. “You think my parents would give me shit? Even if I did bother to do anything.”

“What do you do if you want to buy something, then?”

“I just take it from my mom’s purse whenever I need it,” he shrugged.

Vanessa closed her mouth, considering what her mom would do if Vanessa tried to take money out of her purse. “My mom gives me money when I weed the garden,” Vanessa provided instead. “She has bad knees, so she can’t do it for very long; that’s why she pays  _ me _ to do it. Do you have a garden?”

“No.”

“That’s sad; I really like having a garden. Whenever I come home, I get to see all the pretty flowers. All our neighbors just have grass. Why don’t you have a garden?”

“We live in a shitty apartment.”

“Oooh. That makes sense. Where do you live?”

“A few minutes that way.” He flipped his hand in a general left direction, closer towards the downtown. A few minutes would be just around the busiest hubbub of the city.

“Do you walk to school, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever taken the bus?”

“Not to school.”

Vanessa harrumphed. “I hate the bus. I wish I lived close enough to walk to school—then I’d never have to take it. I’m almost the first stop, so I have to get on really early in the morning and sit there for the  _ whole route _ . Jet Baker gets on early, too, and he’s so mean. His friends Sam and Nick get on later, and then they all pick on me. This morning they tried to steal my backpack so they could throw my glitter pens out the window; they didn’t get to because I kicked them!” She swung her feet higher in the air, stabbing the points of her blue tennies upwards.

In disagreement, Max intoned, “Walking to school is shit.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s fucking cold in the winter.”

She hummed. “I guess. It’s cold at the bus stop, too, and I have to just stand there. But if I could walk to school, I’d never be cold, because I’d run the whole way there! You can’t be cold if you’re running,” she asserted. “Why don’t you run?”

“Don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Too tired.”

“You can’t be tired if you’re running, either,” she grinned, causing Max to heave a sigh.

Amidst the sea of running kids they were lording over, Vanessa spotted an orange teacher vest making its way towards them, like a ship to their lighthouse. “Hey, is that Ms. Wilhelm coming over here?”

There was no reply, but both were silent as the teacher climbed the sloped hill that their bench was atop of, heads tilted back as she came in front of them. There was the smallest beat where Ms. Wilhelm didn’t say anything and Max crossed his arms, and it was almost like a judge waiting for an appeal.

“Max, we need to have a small chat,” she said. She crouched down to his level, and it was just a student and a teacher again. “You might want to ask your friend to leave for a few minutes.”

He made no reaction beyond the pursing of his lips, and possibly a slight lowering of his chin, and the smallest slant of his eyebrows. Vanessa studied his profile, attempting to derive any sort of will. There was nothing—he just stared at Ms. Wilhelm, as though if he glared hard enough, she would turn around and head back down the hill.

Ms. Wilhelm eventually deigned to turn to Vanessa herself and say, “Can you give us a few minutes alone, please?”

“What about?” Vanessa asked.

“It’s a private matter Max might not feel like sharing.”

“How private could it be?” Max cut in squinting his eyes; “If my school teacher is the one telling me about it.”

Ms. Wilhelm’s lips thinned. “It’s about the phone call I made to your house last night, and about your behavior in class.” She inclined her head and stared at him with wide eyes over the tops of imaginary glasses, as if she were trying to pass some secret message, or as if she expected him to suddenly align with her views and tell Vanessa to leave.

“I don’t see how that’s a private matter,” he replied instead. “I also don’t see why Vanessa should leave, or how there’s anything to talk about at all.”

“Max, I made the phone call because I was hoping that your parents would talk with you—”

“—first mistake.”

“—talk with you about your behavior in class. We need to find a way to work this out; it’s too disruptive to the class, and it’s detracting for others’ learning.”

“You think my parents care? I’m at school, I’m not their problem.”

“That’s not true, Max, they want to see you succee—”

It didn’t particularly matter what Ms. Wilhelm was saying after that point. Max’s posture, which he was already holding tense, went as stiff as the line of an angry fist, and his eyebrows, which had been inching farther downwards, smoothed out like the surface of a glacier. It didn’t matter because he wasn’t listening anymore.

“It’s not good when you call parents,” Vanessa blurted, cutting Ms. Wilhelm’s blabbering off.

Ms. Wilhelm stopped, eyes moving to Vanessa. Max had shifted, and he was staring at her from the fringes of his vision, too. “No, it’s not,” she agreed. “When teachers call parents, it means there’s a solution we’re trying to find that we can’t find by ourselves. Or—”

“No,” Vanessa interrupted again, emphatically. “It’s not good.” she willed the adult to understand what she had gleaned from only tugs on hair and glancing shrugs.

“Oh.” Ms. Wilhelm nodded seriously. Vanessa sighed in relief. “I see. I understand that you might be upset with me for getting you in trouble, Max, but there are consequences to your actions. Your parents only did it because they want to help you, though.”

No. No, Vanessa thought, that wasn’t what she meant at all. Now Max was glaring at her. “No, that’s not—”

Ms. Wilhelm held up a hand to Vanessa and steamrolled through. “This is what happens, Max. If you continue to act like this in class, I’ll have to call your parents again.”

Max just narrowed his eyes to little slits and replied, “Don’t bother, because they aren’t going to do whatever you think they’re going to do, and neither am I.”

Ms. Wilhelm stood up, hands on her hips. “Then you’ll have to deal with whatever punishment they decided to give you.” She ambled off down the hill to fulfill the rest of her teacherly recess duties.

Vanessa looked back over to Max, whose delicate recess mood was irrecoverably soured. He was still glaring at her. “That’s not what I meant,” she clarified.

“I know what you meant, Vanessa,” he sneered. “And I’ll tell you right now, before you delude yourself into making the mistake again—even if she  _ had _ understood what you meant, it wouldn’t have improved anything. You just can’t expect help from people—that’s not how the world works. Nobody actually cares about your problem unless it affects them or they’re morons that don’t know how to mind their own business.

“And what’s more, don’t even  _ try _ that shit on my behalf; I can handle it myself. I don’t need you poking around and telling what’s my business to shitty teachers that aren’t going to do anything about it. My problems are mine, not yours to go spilling around.” It was probably the most she’d ever heard him respond from a prompt of hers in the history of their relationship, but she didn’t feel accomplished.

Vanessa stared down at her lap, having to avert her eyes. Her teeth were glued together with taffy-like guilt, and her insides all turned about like soup under her skin. Those were the only things preventing her from puffing up her cheeks and refuting no, he wasn’t handling it, because he didn’t change the phone numbers and he didn’t convince Ms. Wilhelm to avoid calling his parents again. Those spicy thoughts only mixed her stomach up into chili that made her feel even sicker.

“You might not believe me, but just watch. It’ll only be a few more days until I break her,” Max promised.

* * *

Vanessa was small for her age. She had twig arms and sharp knees, and her only sticking point was the vigor and speed with which she swung her feet. Her little brother Mikey was that and less, lagging far behind the growth curve for kindergarteners and terribly asthmatic to boot. He couldn’t defend himself from Jet Baker, and Vanessa was discovering that she made a terrible knight.

“Go away, Jet, or I’ll kick you,” Vanessa threatened, placing her feet down as firm as she could, creating a wall to shield Mikey wheezing on the ground behind her. He was just climbing to his hands and knees, fumbling through his pockets for his inhaler. He had been chased by the three older boys and sprinted up the hill to her aid.

“Go ahead, we aren’t afraid of your shoes,” Jet chortled, even though he definitely had bruises from the event on the bus a day or two ago. Nick and Sam were stalking up the hill from behind him, rounding out to flank Vanessa on either side. She snarled at them as they paced closer, not daring to lunge for fear of exposing Mikey.

Nick reached towards Vanessa and she lashed out, striking his shin and landing a solid shove on his chest. He stumbled backwards, leg failing beneath him. Before she could turn back towards the other one, hands grabbed her arm and ponytail. Sam toppled her into him and she bleated out a cry. “Let go!” she shrieked, positively piercing. She writhed in his hold, bashing the torso behind her with balled fists.

“Vanessa!” Mikey coughed out, wet and raspy. She assumed he had taken his three puffs, but it didn’t sound as though he had done it right. His breathing was still harsh beyond the tears and snot. “Vanessa!”

Two more hands grabbed at her arms from the front. She saw them reaching, and as they came in she got her mouth around one and bit. Jet tore away from her before either of them could clamp down, clutching the spity spot she managed to leave. She whirled around and snapped at the air with her teeth, causing the hands that had been yanking her head around and pressing fingernail crescents in her skin to magically vanish. She turned to face Sam fully and roared, shoving him farther away.

“Vanessa!” Mikey screeched, a clearer urgency in his tone. Vanessa whipped around to see Nick hauling her brother up with one arm and scrabbling around his waist, trying to get into his pockets. Mikey’s inhaler clattered to the pavement as he swiped at Nick’s hands, blubbering and thrashing.

“Mikey!” Vanessa charged towards him and ran full on into Jet Baker’s chest, which had materialized directly in front of her. As she rebounded off of him, he helped her along, pushing her to the ground. Her palms landed first, smarting from the pavement and loose rubble.

“We’re only taking his cards, relax!” Jet jeered. Vanessa glared at him. Mikey loved those trading cards; he always carried around his favorite ones in his pockets.

“You don’t even want them!” she snapped, the edges of her tone wobbling. She attempted to climb to her feet, but he kicked them out from under her at the ankles and knocked her back to her elbows.

“Just stay down,” he grinned above her, filling the sky.

“What the fuck is going on?” an incredulous voice called in. Everyone startled and looked over at Max, who had finally come out from lunch. Other fifth graders were flooding the recess fields from behind him. He was staring at the scene with pocketed hands and wide eyes. “Jesus Christ, Jet, don’t you have anything better to do?”

Vanessa’s breathing continued to hitch as she sagged in relief. Nick’s grip on Mikey slipped as he fought; when he broke free, he was nearly dumped on the ground. Nick halfheartedly lunged at Mikey while the latter scrambled after his inhaler. Vanessa quickly crawled towards him.

“Go away Max, this doesn’t concern you,” Jet sniped, rocking his weight backwards. It was in anticipation, because everyone knew fourth graders couldn’t boss around fifth graders. 

“Um, no, because you can’t tell me what to do, that’s my bench right there, and that’s my follower and her little brother you’re picking on.” Irritation bled into his tone as he stalked closer. “In fact, and I’ll give you a free shot here, fuck off and stop picking on Vanessa period.”

“Really? Don’t tell me you actually care.” Jet crossed his arms. It made him look bigger, but it also doubled as security. “You don’t care about anything.”

Max’s eyebrows pitched downwards, and he started frowning for real. He walked over to Mikey and Vanessa, who was guiding her brother’s breaths as he took another try with his inhaler. He stood between them and the three fourth graders, who had grouped back up. “ _ Leave _ ,” he enunciated, rather than engage in any sort of verbal trade.

Jet took a step backwards. “Fsh. Whatever. Come on, guys, it’s not worth it. We’ll get them later.” They all beat into a retreat.

Max’s face smoothed out, chin tilting up. “No you won’t.”

Jet rolled his eyes and slunk off down the hill. Nick and Sam jogged lightly in front of him.

With the danger gone, the tension Max had used to draw himself up bled out of his body, and his gaze turned down to Vanessa cradling her brother in her arms. “You good?” he asked. She nodded, and he took that as cue to head to his bench.

Mikey slowly eased away from Vanessa, hands sliding off her waist. She took the inhaler from his limp grip and tucked it back into his pocket, patting the outside of the material gently. She straightened his shirt and combed her fingers through his hair, laying a kiss on his forehead and whispering, “Mikey, you should go tell a teacher what happened, okay?”

Mikey nodded, scrubbing at his eyes. Vanessa pulled both of them to their feet and dropped her hands from him, watching as he stumbled off down the hill towards an orange vest. She herself shuffled over towards the bench where Max sat, dimly aware of his eyes minding her. She plopped next to him, gripping her upper arms where she could still imagine handprints.

“Shouldn’t you have gone with him?” he questioned.

Vanessa shook her head. “Mom says I need to leave him alone more. She wants to make sure he tries solving things on his own, and she wants him to make his own friends.” It was working, because Mikey had way more friends than Vanessa had.

“There’s not much he can do against three fourth graders,” Max pointed out.

“That’s why he came for me,” Vanessa affirmed.

“You didn’t seem to be doing so great, either.”

“That’s why you were there.” She smiled up at him, quieter than normal. “I’m glad you were there. I don’t know what would have happened if you weren’t.”

“He would’ve gotten his stuff stolen.”

“He wouldn’t have gotten to his inhaler,” Vanessa corrected. “He’s got bad asthma. He tried using it when he first ran up the hill, but I don’t think he was able to do it right; he has problems concentrating, too. After that, he was struggling with Nick, and it was knocked out of his hands. The doctor said it’s dangerous if it get too bad and he doesn’t use his inhaler in time. So you saved him.”

Max was actually watching her as she spoke to him—out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t quite facing her, but his head was turned a little. He shifted around as she talked. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I showed up then.”

She beamed at him. “Yep.”

He cleared his throat a little. “You can tell me if anyone’s picking on either of you. I’ll only be around until the end of this year, but I can still probably do something about it until then,” he offered.

She gasped. “That would be so cool! Can you make sure Jet doesn’t pick on me or my brother on the bus anymore?”

Max shrugged. “Sure. And you know, you’ll be in fourth grade next year. You should probably learn how to intimidate people; that way they won’t try and pick on you so much.”

“Are you gonna teach me?!”

“Well… jeez, I’ve never really thought about how to explain it to someone.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You’ve seen me do it before. It’s a lot about knowing what people expect of you. You’re a girl, so you could play up the cuteness a lot better that I can. I guess you’ll be working with kids more than adults though, so it’s a little different. It’s hard to explain what you’re supposed to do, especially when the other kid is older and bigger than you are. Let me think about it first, okay? We can start tomorrow,” he suggested, to which Vanessa replied with vigorous nodding. Suddenly, there were peaceful bus rides in her future.

* * *

Things were up for Vanessa—Max was teaching her how to make bullies leave her alone, and it was  _ working _ . That morning, Jet Baker went and sat on the other side of the bus, and he didn’t bother her or Mikey once. She even managed to shut down Riley, another third grader, when the girl said something about her little brother, and  _ no _ one talked down to Riley. But for all of Max’s advice, he wasn’t improving his own situation at all. He was starting to eye the food on other kid’s lunch trays, and the only reason Vanessa hadn’t saved him any of hers yet was out of the fear of him turning it away. He would take it if he was hungry enough, but she didn’t  _ want _ to wait for him to get that hungry. She wanted him to fix it. Instead, he stubbornly maintained his opinion that Ms. Wilhelm was not to be reasoned with.

Vanessa scuffed her foot on the ground as she waited for Max to come out to recess. She wore at the divot she had created over the past few months of sitting in that same spot and told herself that this time she would argue. That she never argued with Max before, but this time she needed to for his own good.

He startled her by taking his seat without a sound, jumping into the fringes of her vision. “What’s got you so wired?” he questioned, an eyebrow turned up at her.

She swallowed down a lump and kicked her feet. “How do you boss around adults?” she questioned.

Displeased, he answered, “I already told you.”

“No, I mean…  _ scare _ them.”

“Oh.” He hummed in concession, thinking for a moment while tugging on a strand of hair. “You have to have pretty special circumstances to scare adults. Real consequences, like blackmail and shit. But sometimes that doesn’t even work, you know? If it ends up backfiring, then it’s just a billion times worse, so you gotta be super careful.” He turned his concern towards her. “Why, is an adult bothering you?”

“No,” she answered. “They’re bothering you.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed with his whole body, recognizing her lead-up for what it was. “Vanessa—”

“Max, whatever you’re doing isn’t working,” she complained. “You need to do something different!”

“It’s working fine,” he retorted. “It just needs more time.”

“Well, I think you could fix it  _ now  _ if you  _ talked _ to her—”

“Well, I think it’s a good thing it doesn’t matter what you think, then,” he parroted. “It’s my business, not yours. I already told you I don’t want you messing with my problems.” 

“But Max—” she whined.

“No! It’s my business, and if you want me to keep teaching you shit, you’ll leave it alone.”

Her hands lying flat on the bench curled into fists. “You’re not even listening to what—”

“I’m not trying to.”

Vanessa huffed. “That’s not very fair. I’m just  _ worried _ —”

“Well don’t! I didn’t ask you to worry—I don’t even know what you’re worrying about. I’m dealing with it,” he declared, tone final.

She crossed her arms, bit her tongue for the longest time, and then muttered into the thick air, “Are not.”

His eyebrows bowed down, aggravation pitching into irritation, gaze snapping towards her. “What?”

Vanessa skewed her face to match. “I said ‘are not.’ You are not dealing with it.”

“I swear to God, Vanessa, if you don’t shut the fuck up and mind your own business—”

“—What?”

“I’ll ignore you and you won’t have any friends again, and people will start picking on you,” he shot back.

“I just want to  _ help you _ ,” she pouted.

“How is this helping me?” He threw his hands out. “All you’re doing is giving me shitty advice I didn’t ask for and don’t want! Newsflash: Leave me alone!” His mouth was turned down like a steel wire wrought out of shape.

Reminding herself what she set out to do, Vanessa let all the frustration pool up in her gut like potent dredges from an oil well. With just a little spark—he wasn’t  _ listening  _ to her, if he could just let her fucking  _ talk _ —she shook herself up straighter, letting her fists tremble the smallest amount, and snapped out, “Why don’t you want to help yourself?”

He moved away, taken aback. His features jumped into surprise for a infantile beat before they recrossed themselves like live wires, loud and flashing. He drew up straighter. “I am  _ doing something _ about it, now stop yelling at me!”

“But it’s  _ not getting better _ —”

“Vanessa!”

“—and you are  _ not _ doing something about it!” she cried, throwing her arms up. “You said you were going to fix it but you haven’t!”

“Stop butting your head in where it doesn’t belong and leave me alone!”

“You can do all this stuff, but you’re not even stopping Ms. Wilhelm from calling your parents!” she shouted, smacking her hands down on the bench.

“Shut up for five minutes, Jesus Christ!” he barked. “You don’t even think about what comes out of your mouth—you just question the first thing that doesn’t make sense, which is  _ everything _ because you don’t understand  _ anything _ !”

“You’re not even trying!” she yelled instead.

“You don’t  _ know _ what I’m doing! Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do, you can hardly get a couple of fourth graders to leave you alone!”

“ _ I’m _ not the one with the problem,” she snarled, pounding a fist on her chest and rising to her feet. Max was quick to follow her up, towering over her with a scowl. “ _ I _ don’t have a problem because  _ I  _ can talk to people. Instead of fighting a  _ teacher _ , I don’t even get in such a big mess in the first place!”

“Well I’m not you, Vanessa,” he hissed, full of malice. “I don’t just sit still like a little doll and do exactly what everyone says. And if you don’t think I can do it, then you can  _ leave _ .”

“That’s  _ not  _ what I’m saying,” she rebuked hotly. “If you would stop being difficult and stubborn for three seconds, you would be able to tell that I have and idea that might actually  _ do _ something for you instead of aggravating your teacher into turning your life into a fucking nightmare!”

He clenched his teeth together as red flooded up his face, his fists trembling and his whole body quivering. “I already told you that it’s  _ none _ of your BUSINESS!” He threw his hands down and pounded the ground with his foot, snorting out his excess rage in an puff of hot air and throwing his most incensed glare in her direction before turning about, crossing his arms and facing away from her. She could see the claws he made while grabbing his upper arms. “Go. Away,” he spat, scathing.

The words came down like a brick against her head and knocked her back into her seat, arms crossed to hold herself together even as all of her anger tore at her seams. She studied his stance through narrowed eyes, letting the argument fester in the air. It seeped from her body like hot blood, poisoned and ruddy. But then it bled all out, and she sighed raggedly. The truth of the matter was, she was further from convincing him than she had ever been. She gathered back up the remains of her argument and sanded off their edges, slotting them back together. After a long while, the wind having blown away enough of the tension in the air to speak—

“I’m sorry. I didn’t do that right. I know you’re trying. Can I please try again?” He didn’t budge an inch, and she could only imagine the fiery gaze he was using to burn up the playground he was surveying. But at the very least, he didn’t walk away, so she still had his ears. “I think if you actually talked to Ms. Wilhelm, it would do something. I think she would care, because I  _ know _ you can make her. Instead of trying to outlast her in a game where she’s not even getting worn down, I think you would do better if you did something yourself. Would you even try it like that?” She waited to see if he would answer. She waited a long time—long enough that her question was almost faded and long enough to almost reduce her waiting to irrelevance. After too long, she had to admit to herself he wasn’t going to answer.

“Whenever you teach me stuff… it’s always about talking. None of your tactics work if you aren’t talking. How are you supposed to convince her if you never say a word?” She stared at his unmoving form as he refused to even shift his weight. Finally listening to his request, she slid off the bench and walked away.

* * *

“Ms. Wilhelm.”

The teacher, all dressed up in her orange vest, turned away from the tetherball game she was supervising to find Max next to her, hands casually stowed in his pockets. His gaze bored up into hers. He sighed, shoulders slacking from their great burden, and stated, “I have to talk to you.”

She scrutinized him up and down before rearranging herself towards him and responding, “Alright. What is it you want to talk about?”

“My parents aren’t doing what you think they are,” he informed. “I just thought you should know. If you’re calling them because you want them to encourage me, then don’t; they haven’t said a word about it.”

She raised a brow and replied, “Clearly they’re doing something, if you want me to stop calling them so much.”

Max pursed his lips before quoting, “‘It’s bad when teachers call parents.’ If you actually bothered to listen to Vanessa, maybe you’d know what I’m talking about.”

“Max, the situation isn’t something that’s out of your control. You can change your behavior and I won’t have to call your parents again.”

His eyebrows slanted forward, a grain of sand getting caught up in his voice. “I’m not going to sit still and support your mindless brainwashing. Actually do something useful and I might reconsider.”

“Well, so long as you keep interrupting in class, I can’t help you work anything out.”

He sighed sharply through his nose and ducked his head askance. “Maybe if you actually wanted to solve the problem, I’d act less like a shithead,” he suggested.

She blinked. “Of course I want to—”

“No you don’t. You don’t want to fix any problems. You just want me to sit down and shut up like a little doll. I just told you my problem and you told me you didn’t want to deal with it. How am I wrong?”

“Max, if you really want to get help, you have to cooperate.”

“If you want me to cooperate, you have to do something that would make me think, for even just a second, that you’re going to help me.” He turned his eyes back up to glare at her. “But let’s save that for another talk. If you actually want to work something out, you can’t call my parents. It would be between just the two of us.”

“Your parents are an important part of the discussion; I can’t agree to just cutting them out, Max.”

Max’s lips pursed. “Well if you get too hung up on that, then we’re never going to get anywhere.”

“I understand that might be what you want in a perfect world, but—”

“That’s not it at all.”

She actually took a beat to hear what he had to say. “Then what is it?”

“I know they should be involved; you don’t need to keep shoving it in my face over and over again. But that’s not going to happen, so if you want to get anywhere, you’re gonna have to get over it. I did.”

“We all have to work together to come to a solution,” Ms. Wilhelm asserted. “If you’re actually willing—”

“My parents aren’t going to, I just told you.”

“They need to,” she insisted. “You’re parents need to be involved, Max.”

“But they aren’t going to,” he ground out.

“Max, you have to learn to give and take. I know you want the problem to just go away, but you need to put some effort forward and open up to—”

“Oh my God. Stop,” Max snapped, bringing up his two hands. He took a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered to himself. “I can’t fucking do this.”

“Talk to me, Max.”

“I’m trying!” he barked. “It’s like you’re not hearing a single word that’s coming out of my mouth!”

“Then please explain to me what I’m missing.”

Max heaved a deep breath, pressing him palms together. “My parents are never, ever, ever going to talk to you. Ever. About anything.”

Ms. Wilhelm took a solid few seconds trying to shove that brick of a sentence through the rundown food processor that was her mind. “Why not?”

“Because they don’t care.”

And just when it seemed she was starting to get a clue, her eyebrows pitched forward and the openness on her face curdled into displeasure. “Max, with this again, that’s simply—”

He could hear what she was about to say. He could hear it before she said it, because it was all he ever heard. “Shut up!” he barked. “Shut up! You don’t get to say that!”

“Max, you can’t—”

“Can’t fucking what?  _ You _ can’t! What the fuck gives you the smallest goddamn impression that you know my own parents better than me? Huh?” He burned little holes in her head with just his eyes, and it seemed he finally managed to hit some vital brain function because she stopped talking. “Nothing! You’ve never even fucking  _ met  _ them!”

She looked a like a broken robot—her mouth fell open, and a small little noise eked out that Max ran over before it could possibly manifest.

“I don’t know why everyone insists on having so much confidence in them! They’ve done  _ nothing  _ to deserve it! They’ve  _ never _ gone to a parent teacher conference, they’ve  _ never  _ gone to a back to school night, they’ve  _ never  _ answered your calls and they’ve  _ never  _ called you back! They’ve never even listened to one of your voicemails all the way through; they stop as soon as they hear you’re from the school! What the fuck makes you think they’re going to help? They are not. Going. To help you!” A sudden shock wracked his frame and he swiped at his eyes before any spilling tears could gather. He glared up at Ms. Wilhelm, because he wasn’t going to break down, and she wasn’t going to treat him like a baby. It was just a flash. It was just a flash and now it was gone, because eventually you just got used to it.

Her eyes were all droopy though, and her mouth was curved down in a frown, and she was pitying him. “Max…”

“Stop it,” he snapped, and his voice didn’t even shiver. “Stop it, stop it. Just stop calling them, because whatever you think you’re doing, you’re not.” And the sunshine busting out of the goddamn crack in the Earth finally shined on her face.

“Okay, Max.”

“Fucking finally.” He scrubbed at his eyes again and turned to stomp away.

Ms. Wilhelm pulled forward a step, hand ever so slightly leaving her side. “Wait, come—”

“I’m done talking right now. Leave me alone.” And for once, she actually listened to him.

* * *

While looking at her hands, Vanessa could detect only the quiet shuffles of feet scuffing across pavement. Max’s sneakers stepped into the edge of her vision before the bench beneath her bent ever so slightly from his weight. She didn’t lift her head or open her mouth. She didn’t know to what degree he had forgiven her, and he was mad enough that he hadn’t even bothered showing up yesterday. Max didn’t say anything, either—just reached into his pocket and pulled out an apple, holding it against his thigh within her line of sight. But they only gave you one apple at lunch, and she had definitely seen him eat his.

“Where’s that from?” she questioned.

“Home,” he answered simply. He brought it to his mouth and took a bite, the noise crunching loud near her ear. She lifted her head to look at his face. “Ms. Wilhelm gave me a letter to bring to my parents yesterday saying that I had improved my behavior greatly in class. She was afraid they wouldn’t get it if it was a voicemail.”

Vanessa’s breath caught up in her chest. “Did you win?”

He swallowed. “Nope. I just went and talked to her. Sometimes, I need a little push from my friends.” His eyes swiveled over to hers. “So thanks.”

She nodded. Reasonably, she should be quiet, but she couldn’t help but ask, “Are we friends?”

He lifted his chin up to look down at her, as if it would somehow disguise his small grin. “Don’t let it get to your head,” he warned.

She shook her head. “I won’t.” She didn’t know if it was going to her head or not, but the floaty feeling might have indicated yes.

“If you’ve put up with me for this long, it means you’ve earned it, or something.”

He had a funny definition, because it previously seemed like he was doing most of the tolerating. Still, who was she to deny? “Thanks.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem.” He looked back out over the playground and didn’t say anything else on the subject—just continued eating his apple. But he looked happy enough, so Vanessa made the executive decision that this was the kind of time Max wanted silence. She figured it was something she could get used to.

**Author's Note:**

> Hooray! If anyone wants me to write a specific story for this series, you can leave your idea down in the comment section. I might write it—no promises. And I will make sure to credit the idea. If you liked this story, go check out the others!


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